Kyofu densetsu: Kaiki! Furankenshutain

50 years after the Universal classic, Toei animation puts their hand into adapting Mary Shelly's monstrous novel, "Frankenstein". In many ways this version is more faithful to the original novel, although I still wouldn't write your book report with it. The visuals of the monster are clearly borrowed from Karloff's portrayal.

This is a charming incarnation of the story. The focus on this version is on Victor's guilt for what he created and later, his daughter Emily. Teaming the monster with a young anime girl just feels right. One of those, only the wide eye innocence of a child can see the truth.

It will never replace the original, but this is still a version that utilizes the story to teach some powerful lessons about pride, science, mob mentality and inner beauty. It is the right balance of Halloween spook and wholesome cuteness.

This is a very scary movie. It has a great story line and I also has great acting. It scarier then A Nightmare on elm street. It is scarier then The Exorcist. Frankenstein (1931) is better. But still this a good movie.

Quick rundown: (All of this is my opinion, of course)

Pros:

• Great animation somewhere between the style of the old 90s X-Men cartoons and Pokemon. The backgrounds were especially striking to me, but I really liked the way they drew Frankenstein and his monster in this. This alone made it worth watching for me. I liked it that much.
• The story is good, even if the dialogue is not.

Cons:

• Terrible script. The story itself is good but it's not told very well.
• I don't know what the Japanese version sounds like but the English dubbing is TERRIBLE. I cannot stress how bad it is. It's so bad. I had it muted most of the time. I just couldn't stand it. On the plus side, the story is pretty obvious even without subtitles so I didn't need dialogue to follow most of it.
• The score is pretty bad, too.

Pro or Con depending on your viewpoint:

• A mature and tragic story that doesn't pull many punches.
• Kind of bloody and gory in parts.

That's my two cents. 5/10 for me.

I saw this dubbed anime version of Frankenstein under the title Monster of Frankenstein, which is the name of a Marvel comic book series from the 1970s. This is supposedly based on that which, of course, was based off of Mary Shelley's classic novel. I say supposedly because I'm not overly familiar with that series so I don't know if this is directly adapted or just loosely so. The movie starts with Frankenstein creating the monster, who then attacks his creator and falls off a cliff. From there Frankenstein returns home to his VERY annoying family and spends a lot of time freaking out, worrying that his creation is going to come after him. Eventually, he decides to hunt down the monster himself and kill it.

This isn't for kids. There's lots of blood, violence, death, and even implied cannibalism. One character has his head squeezed until he loses an eye. Frankenstein cuts into a steak and the sight of blood makes him flashback to cutting up cadavers. It's fairly graphic at times, even by today's standards. The animation is kind of like what you would see in the '80s on cartoons like G.I. Joe, for those of you who are familiar with that. It seems strange to me that this was made by Japanese people for Japanese television yet all of the characters are Anglicized. Was that a common practice then? From what I've read it wasn't dubbed and released in the US until 1984. It's not bad necessarily, but it's overlong and weird. Still, I can't think of many other cartoons like it. If you're a Frankenstein fan you should definitely check it out.

Kyofu densetsu: Kaiki! Furankenshutain (1981)

*** (out of 4)

This animated Japanese movie is another take on the Frankenstein legend as the doctor thinks it's a good idea to play God and he soon regrets that decision.

This film is also known as MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN and FRANKENSTEIN OF TERROR but no matter what you call it I thought the film was pretty good. I'm not going to call this thing a masterpiece as there are countless issues with it but if you're a fan of the monster then this is certainly worth watching.

The version I watched was the dubbed English one but what was most impressive was the visuals. I really loved the animation and especially some of the creative uses of light and its effect on the monster. The monster appears to look like ash early on and I really loved the scenes where lightening would strike and have the monster glow in a green tint. The entire look of the film is quite excellent as it perfectly captures a Victorian era but also a Gothic horror film.

The vocal work in this dubbed version was quite good and I'd argue that the story told is pretty effective. This here goes for a more "father-son" approach to the doctor and the monster. I thought the film also benefited from showing the horrors of the doctor having to live with what he has created. I was really surprised by this one but it's worth watching.